These Cuts Will Heal Over
by adrianazerionu
Summary: Estabilished Snippy/Engie, my take on the challange to their relationship presented by the Biomatrix permanently attaching the Sniper's clothes and mask to his body.


**AN: Welcome, and enjoy my 3AM angsty rambles. No beta.**

* * *

Three sleepless nights after the disappearance of Charles Snippy, a snowman turned up at the door.

Alexander Gromov shook the snow out of the fluff of his coat and barked an order. He was later unable to recall the exact wording, as he was busy dragging a motionless body towards the couch with questionable assistance of Pilot which mainly consisted of staring and later on lifting said body to the couch.

"Stop staring and start a fire, idiot!" the Engineer ordered. Pilot complied.

His fingers slid to the clip keeping Snippy's respirator on his face. It wouldn't quite come off. He pulled harder, panicking, fingers sliding under the hood of the Sniper's jacket. The hood fell down and he was assaulted by overgrown hair full of snow.

His voice broke. "Come on, Charles." His fingers found the elastic band that kept the mask on. The room fell into silence without the Engineer's rapid breaths, only a small fire cracking.

Where the band used to cover the Sniper's face, there was a flat surface of two materials merging. Skin, fabric, skin. Inseparable.

A sob pierced the silence, soon followed by quiet cries and russian.

…

They tiptoe around each other for the next few days.

"My scarf offers me organs. It made my gear my, um, body." Charles says one night and claims that he desperately needs to pee, but had knocked a chair over and woke up Alexander, who wouldn't let him go without an explanation. The Engineer accepts that. (He's not up enough to question the need to pee while lacking a way to drink, much less lacking access to other necessary body parts.)

Neither of them sleeps for the most part of the night. The bed they used to share is colder without the Sniper, so Alexander waits every night, hopes for him to come back. The silence outside is louder, the shrieks of metal and monsters more piercing. He doesn't look for Charles, because after the first time, he has never gone missing again. He fears scaring him away.

Charles Snippy does not in fact go out into the wastelands at night.

Sometimes, when the Engineer wakes up, he sees a figure in the corner of his sight.

"It changes nothing." he whispers the next morning after dropping the sleeping act. When he turns around to face the corner of the room, there's no one. The door is open.

…

The next night Alexander wakes up well before the dawn, confused just until he hears the bed creak. His heart skips a beat as he turns to look at the dark figure at the far end of the bed. _I must be dreaming_, he concludes at first. He doesn't dare speak nor move for painfully long sixty seconds. He shifts a few centimeters closer then and stops abruptly when he feels Charles tense. He exhales and relaxes. It will do for the night.

…

Charles never lets Alex touch him anymore.

It hurts Alex in the very core of his being.

…

(He misses the sunsets which brought the least bit of color to the gray world. He misses the soft fur and hair both tickling at his neck and the warm breaths, the comfortable weight at his side. Them, falling together like puzzle pieces (the rest of the picture may be missing, but they are complete and they are perfect). He misses the evenings spent on the roof, hours, in silence, bathing in the blood red light. The wasteland never did seem cold then.

_This is what I have lost,_ he thinks. _This is why I despise you._

He tears at the itches where his body turns different, scratches desperately at what is left of his skin, hoping for the scars to be _human_. Not a string of complex molecules of five bucks of plastic stolen from an abandoned eBay warehouse, not a _thing. _He scratches until there is blood streaming down his face, and the gloves merged with his fingers are torn at tips and what's left of his nails, what hasn't_ decayed_, is just barely sticking through.

He tugs at the spot where the jacket merges with his skin and his hate for the thin border between his humanity and the former tool, his hate grows and it burdens his heart with roots so deep it is a permanent part of himself not alike its origin. He wonders if the roots are foreign or if the hate truly grew and splintered in his own core and wore away all his love.

The Biomatrix fills the hole in his chest with ignorance.)

…

The tension gradually builds up to a breaking point, a millisecond of terror and ironic regret that the damned scarf hasn't glued his hood to his head as well.

A sharp turn of his head and it fell to his shoulders, revealing dried blood and long scratches at the perfect angle for the Engineer to see. He froze, his heart speeding to a rushed beat as he rose, knocking over his chair, retreating a second too late. Alexander already held him by his shoulder firmly enough, but not painfully. He almost wished for it to hurt.

"Pilot, fetch me the first aid kit." for the first time in years, the russian stumbles over his accent.

Even the DEX thinks it's not quite the time to argue.

"Sit." Charles complies.

Soon the aviator returns, a box with the faded sign of a red cross in his hands. He throws it at the Engineer and turns slowly to the Sniper, eyeing his face carefully. "You shan't take your face away, Snipey!" he bursts out, suddenly seeming mad. "Such pineapple-ness is bad for your looks!"

They watch him dash away, apparently disturbed. Engie's stare lasts a short second as he rather turns his eyes to the box and starts to open it, fumbling slightly. Charles slowly decides that running away is not the perfect strategy as his face is met with a disinfectant a short while later.

"Ow." he complaints, as if to make a point. He receives a glare.

The russian simply continues to rub his remaining skin with a clean cloth dipped in the liquid. His grip softens as he notices the tension in Charles' shoulders, the rubbing turns into long careful strokes. He avoids the non-carbon based areas perfectly, only cleaning the burning red irritated skin, and several cuts. "T'will need stitches." he mumbles when he's covered all the hurt skin.

Charles stays perfectly silent through the three stitches that close the cut from the piece of glass he took to his face and cut with just a few hours ago. His lips tremble slightly under the mask.

"You _hate_ it."

"I hate that it happened to you."

"You won't even touch it with a cloth and gloves on." Charles barks out.

Alexander stops dead in his tracks. "Really?" the corners of his lips twitch up. "You think too much. Alcohol can cause stiffening and discoloration to some types of plastic. As I don't know what type your respirator is, and what changes it went through on the molecular level… Science lesson number one applies. Don't do what you cannot safely predict the result of. "

There is silence. "_You_ think too much." he pauses. "I hate it."

"You have the right to." he nods. "I'm scared you might mistake it for hate for yourself, though."

Neither of them speaks and -

…

Neither of them sleeps for the most part of the night. The bed they share glows with the warmth of two bodies pressed against each other. Charles remembers how to feel again, slowly, with the reminders of kisses planted at his neck, at the first scars he gave himself, and kisses just under the still open wounds. Reminders of fingers running through the mess of his hair and the heat radiating from his other half, his soulmate.

And with every kiss a cut in his heart closes and the hate that has flooded his core melts away and he knows that these cuts –

They will heal over.

* * *

**AN: Review & like, I won't even care what happens for the rest of the day.**


End file.
